Sound of Settling
by A Fool With Hot Chocolate
Summary: She had known from the beginning that this was a relationship born from a broken heart and a desperate one.  She was under no illusions that theirs was a loving, beautiful, human commitment. -Kanaya had settled for her and that hurt- Kanaya/Rose
1. Tell Tale Heart

Pairings: Kanaya/Rose, one-sided Kanaya/Vriska

WARNINGS: There's implied masturbation (whoa writing that word was awkward) and Rose is a voyeur. Also I've never written anything as sexual as that before I don't know what possessed me to try it now, but have fun reading it anyway.

Listen to this song here; it's what I used to keep the mood: Tiny Vessels by Death Cab for Cutie

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><p>She had known from the beginning that this was a relationship born from a broken heart and a desperate one. She was under no illusions that theirs was a loving, beautiful, <em>human<em> commitment. It was much more similar to Troll romance of the red kind, filled with pity and mating fondness except without so much of said fondness. Actually, the fondness was certainly there on her end of the deal, and it pained her to think that she had fallen so far.

Rose had never considered herself to be a slave to her emotions, as her friends were wont to be. Jade with her sudden and almost frightening mood swings, John and his surprisingly frail heart and beautiful smile, and even Dave though he thought his feelings were hidden behind well-worn sunglasses that Rose knew he kept for more than simple irony. She observed them through various pesterchum logs, taking note of their reactions and dreams and wants and most of all the things that they loved, because love was a concept she only understood in a cold and sarcastic way. The Lalonde household was not one of familial affection, it was a game of one-upmanship (_that wasn't true she knew it wasn't, her mother's death had proved that much to her but Rose had grown up believing that love was false and empty_).

So when she felt her stomach twisting in a sick sort of way whenever she spoke with Kanaya, their foreheads almost touching as they spoke quietly beneath their breath, she did not immediately recognize it for what it was.

There was no way to pinpoint the beginnings of such a feeling. Rose knew that she had grown increasingly fond of the jadeblooded Troll girl through their online chats, and when they finally met in person on the asteroid space station she couldn't stop a weary little smile from curving her lips. She remembered that her stomach had flip-flopped a little when Kanaya smiled back, sharp white teeth peeking shyly from under emerald lipstick. Rose had chalked it up to nerves. Conversations with John proved otherwise.

"It sounds like you have a crush!" He teased quietly, the two of them sitting in one of the empty labs that littered the asteroid base. Rose had paused in her knitting, the loops of yarn nearly slipping from her needles.

"Pardon?" She asked, her tone smooth, not betraying the surprise that she felt. John merely smiled, reaching out to rest a hand on her shoulder. _He is so small_, she thought, feeling his slender pianist fingers sliding warmly down her arm as he leaned in closer. She realized with slight trepidation that his actions did not instill any feelings of the sexual kind within her. Much to her relief, John realized that all on his own and pulled away with a slightly awkward expression, his cheeks flushed in a way that Rose would have found charming if she weren't so confused.

"Haven't you ever had a crush on someone before, Rose?" This was the question that would haunt the blonde late into the night, knitting furiously and chewing her lower lip as Kanaya slept in the room next to hers.

It was almost entirely an accident that Rose discovered Kanaya's secret (or perhaps it wasn't, Rose didn't know) crush. The keyword there was 'almost', and Rose was a little ashamed at how she had learned this bit of information. Kanaya's room was adjacent to hers and the walls, while metal, were not entirely soundproof. Not to mention the ventilation system carried sound fairly well and it was easy to press her ear to the vent a few inches off the floor, ears trained to pick up the slightest change in pitch (the violin was good for something after all) easily locking onto the sound of breathing. Kanaya was panting heavily, making soft growling noises that Rose was certain she wouldn't be able to hear if not for the fact that Kanaya's best was right next to the vent.

Oh my god. Oh my _god_. Rose turned so red it felt like she had a third degree burn spreading across her face and neck and down her chest. Kanaya was—she was—_oh gog_. Despite her embarrassment Rose couldn't tear herself away, her left ear pressed to the vent and her left hand scrabbling for purchase on the cold metal floor. The growls grew a little louder and a sharp heat pooled in Rose's abdomen, the feeling a familiar one, and the blond shakily brought her right hand up to her mouth, biting the fleshy part of her palm just in time to smother a soft whine.

Kanaya was apparently moving quite a bit because Rose could hear the rustling of cloth and her imagination filled in the rest. Violet eyes clamped shut and she bit her palm harder, trying to regulate her own breathing. Kanaya was speaking now, something in Troll that Rose couldn't quite translate, but she could catch the final phrase as Kanaya came with a strangled shout.

"_Fuck, Vriska!_" It grew quiet. Rose swore that she couldn't even hear her own heartbeat, because she was fairly certain that it had stopped.

When Rose was in the computer lab later that day she caught Kanaya's eye. She could not stop the flush that rose to her cheeks and she quickly excused herself from the room in the middle of a conversation with Jade. She felt eyes on her back as she exited and she _knew_. Kanaya had known that Rose was listening. Kanaya had continued what she was doing, calling out Vriska's name, while Rose listened through the air vent that connected their rooms. That knowledge made bile rise up in Rose's throat and she had to rest her head against the cool metal wall of the hallway, not caring that she was out in the open. A deceptively thin hand came to rest on the small of her back and Rose clenched her fists, breathing out shakily when surprisingly rough lips caressed the back of her neck.

Why Vriska? Why spidertroll? Everyone knew that she was into John, with the way she hung over the kid at all hours of the day. Rose allowed herself to be turned around, meeting Kanaya's eyes for a brief moment before emerald green lips descended on her own painted black mouth. It didn't matter that just a few scant hours before Kanaya had been moaning and panting to the image of another girl. It didn't matter that Rose knew she was being used as a replacement, that she was being settled for. She would take what she could get.

By the next morning everyone knew that Rose and Kanaya were an 'item' now, as John so eloquently put it. Rose pretended that she didn't see John looking at her, just like she pretended that she couldn't see Kanaya looking at Vriska. She moved into Kanaya's room and the two of them decorated it the way they wanted, a mix between dark and bright fabrics that Kanaya had alchemized but didn't plan on using. They laughed and joked, hands brushing each other's as they worked. It was easy to forget that they were not perfect, so long as Vriska was out of sight, and Rose selfishly wished that the spidertroll would simply disappear with the Horrorterrors.

She couldn't prevent her disappointment each morning when she woke up to find that Vriska was still there.

Rose had always believed that she would treat her future partners as aloofly and clinically as she treated her friends, showing her care in small, practical ways that could be appreciated for what they were. But Kanaya had quickly proved to be a demanding lover (trying to make up for her lack of true affection with physicality, Rose noted one night as they kissed) and Rose was altogether surprised and terrified to find that she wanted to please the other girl, bending forward and backwards to try and maintain some semblance of happiness, of the romance she never realized that she craved.

It only hurt more to realize that nothing she did was quite good enough, that everything she provided fell just short of Kanaya's needs.

Kanaya's fondness could easily be chalked up to an aching need to place her affections on someone who would want her. It was sad that Rose was desperate enough to take even that. It stung in the best sort of way when Kanaya would bite a little too hard on her lip or grab her arm too tightly, bruising pale flesh beneath long sleeves. The stinging would give way to bittersweet aching when it hit that Kanaya forgot that Rose was fragile, forgot that she was human, forgot that she wasn't Vriska.

Love was indeed false and empty.

It was a relationship born of a broken heart and desperate one. However, late in the evening when Kanaya's warm hands were tangled in her hair and Rose's own hands (c_old, smooth, hopelessly tainted with Grimdark sentiment_) rested heavily by her sides, she wondered which heart belonged to whom.

_(She wished she had fallen in love with John instead.)_

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><p>Hope you guys liked that. I really loved writing in Rose's perspective. I'm writing some more from Kanaya's point of view.<p> 


	2. Treated So Wrong

Kanaya knew, without a doubt in her mind, that she could easily be compared to the refuse of a musclebeast (in Dave's less than polite terms, she was complete bullshit). Troll romance was something that most of them took very seriously. Human romance, while not the most logical of things, was also something meant to be respected and cherished. Toying with emotions was something that Vriska would do. It was generally frowned upon unless you were a pair of kismesis, in which case you were supposed to 'fuck with each other's heads'.

While she and Rose were supposed to be matesprits, sometimes she felt like they acted more like kismesis. It wasn't that they hated each other (No, Rose adored her and Kanaya hated herself for taking advantage of that), it was that they danced around each other and nearly everything had a double meaning of some sort. And while the dynamics of such a relationship were not too difficult to comprehend, it was the fact that they were so broken without even having having tried to fix it that bothered her.

Rose was apparently content with their broken bond (a tie that was so tightly wrapped around them that they couldn't get away if they tried), though, and Kanaya would catch the girl looking at her longingly out of the corner of her eye. If Kanaya were Vriska, she would have gone over and shaken the truth out of the human. But as it was, Kanaya passively accepted that what they had was not conventional. The others said nothing. Kanaya felt like it was obvious and she was ashamed of herself for letting it happen. It made her try to make up for everything the only way she could. She lavished Rose with affection, gving her kisses and holding her hands, doing anything and everything that would make her stay.

Rose was a loving partner and she did her best. But it felt so empty.

Things came to a head a month into their relationship. Rose had been acting strangely and Kanaya was doing her best to figure out what it was but she was so preoccupied with Vriska that she could not spend her time equally with the girl she called her matesprit and the troll that she (_loved)_ was consoling. Finally, strung out from concern and lack of sleep and a million other things (where was the affection she was so desperately searching for?), Kanaya cornered Rose in the hallway and brought her into what must have been a violent kiss because she could taste the bittersweet tang of Rose's red blood. It was returned but it felt halfhearted. The Troll girl realized with sudden clarity Rose was in pain, that Rose knew (of course she did she had known all along) that Kanaya did not love her. "Rose…"

Kanaya mentally noted that she had never seen a human cry before as translucent liquid swelled in Rose's eyes. Her expression must not have been appropriate for the situation because Rose quickly looked away, swiping her thin (so terribly fragile) fingers under her eyelashes. "My apologies, Kanaya, I appear to have lost where I was for a moment. Will you…please excuse me." Before the Troll could stop her, Rose had hurried out of the room. Kanaya noted that one of her hands (fingers just as slender as Rose's but so much stronger, they could crush a little human hand in a moment) was raised off the bed, reaching out for her departed partner.

For some reason, Kanaya felt like she had been cheated of something precious.

After that, Rose and John had spent two days in one of the labs, trying various codes in an attempt to alchemize something. What is was, Kanaya didn't know, but she found that many of the station's occupants had grown just as curious as her and soon it was very difficult to spy on the two humans in a clever fashion. However by that point whatever the two humans were trying accomplish, it appeared to be done. John looked over at the door, where a mix of troll and human faces were watching them, and his sheepish smile drew the guilty onlookers inside. John was sitting on a bench in front of an interestingly shaped instrument, which Karkat quickly identified as a 'piano'.

Rose held another strange instrument, one that she remembered seeing the other girl play before while watching through the computer screen, and her mind supplied the word 'violin'. It rested at the crook of her neck, her chin and shoulder holding it gently in place, and _oh that was where that odd callous on Rose's neck had come from_. She had not realized it, had not cared enough to question it, and though she felt the slightest pang of guilt her attention was quickly diverted to where Vriska sat on the piano bench next to John, listening to intently as the boy patiently taught the notes of each key.

Rose and John eventually played a piece together, one that Dave later confirmed to be improvised on the spot, and Kanaya saw how well suited the two fragile humans were for each other. That thought sent a spark of shame through her but the Rainbow Drinker kept her mouth shut.

She could not let Rose go.

Later that night she would find herself unable to sleep, the room dark except for her own faintly glowing body. With her hands resting gently on Rose's stomach, Kanaya curled closer to the human that was sleeping in her arms. She smelled like oil and smoke from being in the labs all day (everyone knew that she was avoiding Kanaya and they looked at the Rainbow Drinker so accusingly) but it wasn't an unpleasant scent. It reminded her of bygone days, when Vriska still had her mechanical arm and it would keep breaking.

Kanaya shut her eyes and breathed in deeply, taking in the scent from Rose's hair. Dave was right. She was complete and utter bullshit.


End file.
